Stores that retail convenience goods or commodities on a daily basis often present their goods on shelves. In order to create an ordered display of these goods on the shelving and to enhance their presentation there is used a number of different shelf accessories, such as shelf dividers, different types of devices for pushing the goods and different types of goods-carrying trays, etc. Such accessories are often mounted on the upper surface of the shelf.
Known technology allows these accessories to be fastened to the shelf in a number of different ways, for instance mechanically with the aid of screws or technically equivalent devices, by frictional engagement or by adhesion with the aid of double-sided adhesive tape or by corresponding means.
The devices used to fasten the accessories to the shelves will preferably have some fundamental properties. One important property is that it is possible to fasten the accessories at selected positions along the length of the shelving, so as to position the accessories in a chosen space relationship that is adapted to suit different packages and different quantities of goods. The accessories should further be securely held to the shelf in order to avoid that they are inadvertently loosened or displaced from their intended positions.
Shelf dividers constitute an example of accessories where the mutual distance there between can be particularly important. The shelf dividers often consist of partitioning walls which are fastened to the shelving such as to extend at right angles to the longitudinal direction of the shelving and to project outwardly perpendicularly therefrom. The primary purpose of the shelf dividers is to separate different groups of goods from one another and to create order on the shelving. Particularly when a goods advancing means is placed between two shelf dividers, it is essential that the shelf dividers are not displaced towards one another, since the friction between goods and shelf dividers may then become so great as to prevent advancement of the goods.
The accessories will preferably also be held firmly, such as to ensure that they will not topple. In conjunction with this, it is important that the accessory is held firmly and that the fixing device enables respective accessories to be readily fixed and removed.
After setting up a shelf and positioning all accessories along the shelf, it is sometimes necessary to reorganize the shelf, requiring one or more of the shelf dividers to be removed or moved and fixed in a new position. For example, this is the case when the spacing between two adjacent shelf dividers must be adjusted in order to accommodate a new item of goods or package of goods of other dimensions. In addition, it may often be desirable to subsequently fasten other accessories, such as information carriers, for instance flag holders or coupon holders on a shelf that has earlier been placed in order. In order to facilitate such reorganization of parts of a shelf that has already been placed in order it is desirable that individual accessories can be removed and then secured in a new position and to affix new accessories without needing to release remaining shelf dividers.
An additional important aspect is that the fixation devices should be easy to use and especially that it should be easy for the personnel working with the devices to understand how to efficiently handle the devices when setting up and reorganizing shelves. I practice, personnel working with such organization of shelves rarely have the time to study mounting manuals and quite frequently they get little or no instructions or training concerning the handling of the various fixation arrangements that exist on the market. Quite often it happens that the mounting systems are used incorrectly or inefficiently, which may lead to additional work and thereby to reduced profitability for the shop owner. Therefore it is desirable that the construction of the fixation systems is simple such that it is self explanatory how to use the system just by the look of its constituent parts, even for personnel having no earlier experience of the system.
Depending on what products that are to be placed on the shelves, the shelves may have different depth dimensions in the horizontal direction, perpendicular to the front edge of the shelves. Accordingly, the shelf accessories need to exhibit corresponding lengths in order to reach over the shelves' entire depth. In practice, the shelve depths utilized in stores varies from 200 mm to 800 mm. In some occasions the shelf depth may be as large as 1000 mm, however at the majority of shelves for daily commodity stores the shelf depth varies between 400 an 700 mm. Especially at longer accessories, it might be difficult to prevent the rear end of the accessories from moving in the directions parallel to the longitudinal direction of the shelf, thereby causing the accessories to bend. Such bending may in turn cause disorder of the products on the shelf, hinder the functioning of pushers and cause other related problems. In order to prevent or alleviate such problems it might be necessary to provide the fixation systems for longer accessories with additional fixation devices that are arranged at the rear edge of the shelf. The accessories may then be provided with corresponding rear fixation means which are brought into engagement with the rear fixation device for separately fixing also the rear ends of the accessories to the shelf. However, such additional fixation arrangements for the rear end of the accessories naturally makes the systems more complex and thereby more expensive both to manufacture and to mount onto the shelves. Additionally, when setting up and reorganizing shelves provided with such rear fixation arrangements, it is necessary, for each accessory, to position and engage both ends of the accessory to a respective fixation device. This constitutes a cumbersome, time consuming and ergonomically disadvantageous operation, especially since it requires that at least one hand is stretched over the entire shelf depth to reach the rear edge of the shelf. It would thus be advantageous and desirable if also longer accessories could be satisfactory fixed and maintained at the shelf while utilizing only a front fixation device arranged at the front edge of the shelf.
It is also desirable that the means for fixating the accessories will have an aesthetic appearance and will not be an unnecessary obstacle to placing or removing goods on and from a shelf or from adjacent shelving. It is also important that the accessory fixing means are of simple construction and can be produced and mounted at low cost.
Further, it is desirable that the means for securely holding accessories to a shelf can be applied to existing shelves without requiring the shelves to be replaced or modified in some way.